The newly formed league was setup to support the National Women's team, the Ice Fernz, for their IIHF World Championship seasons.

The league would provide opportunity for female players of all ages to develop their skills and play together in a competitive environment.

[1] The league was founded with three teams, including: Auckland Steel, Canterbury Devilettes and Southern Storm.

[8][5] In August 2021, the league had to be cancelled midway through the season due to the New Zealand Government lock-downs to help minimise the COVID-19 pandemic.

[10] In 2022, Wakatipu Wild was the first of the two new teams to claim a league premiership and championship, when it went almost undefeated for the regular season[11] and then won both games in finals.

Forward, Hannah Shields, scored the Steel's and the League's inaugural goal after five minutes in the first period to give the home team the lead.

[16] The Steel turned that good first result into solid form for the remainder of 2014, winning ten of twelve games.

[17][18] Auckland established itself as a powerhouse in the NZWIHL, finishing top the table and winning four Championships in the first six years of the competition, including titles in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019.

The Steel finished the season on top of the league standings once more, to claim the first ever NZWIHL Premiership title.

The Steel finished third in the regular season standings before claiming bronze medals in the NZWIHL Finals.

[1] The Inferno are based at Alpine Ice Centre, located at in the Christchurch inner-city suburb of Opawa.

[5] Former New Zealand international player with the Ice Fernz, Angelique Mawson, was appointed inaugural head coach of Canterbury prior to the 2014 NZWIHL season.

[28] In 2020, Canterbury claimed their second NZWIHL championship title with a 4–2 come-from-behind grand final victory over Auckland.

However, unlike in 2020, they were defeated by Queenstown based Wakatipu Wild 2–0 in the grand final, held at Dunedin Ice Stadium.

An overtime period (OT) and shootout (SO) are used to ensure there is always a winner when time permits during the regular season.

[31] The NZWIHL has adopted the international standard three 20-minute stop-time periods length for all regular season and finals games.

[31] All games progress to overtime and then a shootout in case teams are tied at the end of regulation time.

In order to allow appropriate time for overtime to occur, rinks are booked to 2+1⁄2 hours as a minimum requirement in the NZWIHL.

Import players must have a cleared international transfer card (ITC) in order to be eligible to play an NZWIHL game.